I Hear America Singing

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Historical and Literary Context

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Deeper Study Historical and Literary Context

The American Civil War

Whitman published “I Hear America Singing” on the eve of the Civil War, amidst rising tensions that would soon rend the nation into North and South. Northern states had already outlawed the institution of slavery, and they protested the establishment of new slave states. By contrast, Southern states depended on slave labor, and they worried that any limit placed on slavery portended the end of the institution altogether. The tension over the future of American slavery came to a head in 1860 with the election of President Abraham Lincoln, who opposed the establishment of slave states in the West. At first seven, then eleven slave states declared their secession from the Union and, in 1861, organized under the banner of the Confederate flag. When Whitman published his 1860 edition of Leaves of Grass, the war had not yet begun, but the rift in the Union could certainly be felt. Against this background of division, “I Hear America Singing” offers a reminder of a more fundamental unity.